Days pass and things are more or less back to normal. Sophie seems to have forgotten all about that Thursday, except for times when I see her with a secret smile on her face.
‘Why are you laughing?’ I ask.
‘Thursday,’ is all she needs to say. ‘Caught you guys a beauty.’
Okay, but your turn’s coming, my girl. As soon as I can think of a plan.
Lambert meanwhile works at perfecting his new, mature image. When he tries his deep voice on Angela, she takes pity on him and offers a Strepsil. He tells me about it.
‘Mate, forget maturity,’ he says. ‘Sympathy’s the way to go.’
‘But mate, mate,’ I advise. ‘Girls never date boys they have to help across the road. Or boys in traction. Best you get’s a kiss on the cheek and some grapes then she’s off with some guy who can vault buses.’
‘Bummer.’ Lambert reverts to his normal voice.
We have more or less given up on Rodney’s drum kit. Except for Mitch who still saves up when he gets the chance. But he’s got one of those accounts where the bank enjoys more of the money than he does. The Juvenile-Account-Keeping Impost, Government Charges, the Not-a-Serious-Saver Toll and the Small-Amount-Deposited Surcharge. When you include the Strong-Likelihood-of-Withdrawing- the-Lot Fee, it soon adds up, or in Mitch’s case, subtracts. The bank is gaining on him.
As I try to explain to Mitch why my account isn’t gathering pace the way his is, and without revealing that I haven’t opened one, we get to talking wistfully of playing paradiddles or whatever on Rodney’s lovely drums.
‘I mean,’ Mitch says, ‘we almost had them. One more little job and they were ours.’
‘Ah,’ I tell him wisely. ‘But it was not a job we wanted to do.’
‘So what was it?’
‘He wanted a date with Angela.’
‘So, what’s wrong with that?’ Mitch asks. ‘Put it to Angela, they get a date, we get the drums then we’re laughing.’ When he says it like that, it sounds very reasonable, although Lambert still might object. But, and it’s a delicious but, what if we play it as if this is our scheme to get back at the girls? This is the revenge. There are still one or two rough edges to be sandpapered smooth but it has the makings of a brilliant plan.
Lambert hates it and goes off in a terminal huff. I follow him, pleading our case.
‘Lam-bam,’ I wheedle.
‘The name’s Lambert.’
‘Of course it is. But look at it logically, Lambert. It’s not as if you’re getting a date with her, so you might as well make the most of it. One date with Rodney and we’re drummed up. A serious band.’
He hums and haws while I remind him of our revenge motive, using one of the girls to get our hands on a set of drums. Finally, he gives me a grudging look.
‘Okay, you fix it,’ he says. ‘But I’m not happy.’
‘You never were,’ I mutter.
‘What?’
‘We’re nearly there.’
Problem one. How to get Angela and Rodney to meet. Problem two. How to keep Sophie out of the plan. Sophie has already met Rodney and didn’t like what she saw. Problem three. How to get Rodney to agree to hand over the drums on condition we just make sure he meets Angela, and has five minutes alone with her.
I tackle Rodney first. Okay, he agrees. A meet will do. He’ll leave the security gates open so we can wheel her in. Five minutes alone with her is all he needs, but make it fast. Where girls are concerned, he’s running out of patience. Him too, eh?
Next move is to work on Angela, without Sophie knowing. But these two are never far apart - like bookends supporting a pamphlet. I catch Angela alone at CCC, sipping a latte and wondering where Angelo has gone. He’s a first year uni student, I remind her. Rotten speller.
‘It wasn’t his spelling I was interested in,’ she comes back.
‘Point taken.’ I nod. Then comes the pitch. ‘I’ve been spending time with this guy -’
‘You’re not -?’
‘No.’ I smile a reassuring heterosexual smile, deepening my voice. ‘Not that kind of spending time. This guy’s had a bad experience. He got mugged at an automatic teller machine by a couple of feisty girls and he’s sort of lost his confidence with women in general. You should see him, he just sits there, a quivering mess.’ I wonder if I should try for a reenactment of how Rodney looks in my imagination, but decide against it.
‘So?’ Angela takes a sip of latte.
‘This guy’s really frightened of girls.’ I wait. It could go either way but it starts to go my way. Sort of.
‘So what’s the point of you spending time with him?’
‘Somebody’s got to,’ I say fervently. ‘I was hoping to get my sisters to pop in and show him how nice girls can be but Jennifer’s too young and Senga’s not big on compassion and stuff. She used to be a trainee bedpan operative. It needs a really gentle girl who doesn’t know any coarse jokes.’ I sigh. ‘If only I could find one.’
‘What you’re leading up to is, you want me to do it?’
‘Would you?’ Hope rises in my heart. ‘And you wouldn’t snarl at him?’
‘How does purring sound?’ Angela flexes her red nail-polished fingers. ‘Miaow.’
Lambert is annoyed. I soothe him. It might go either way, I say - she might buzz him right off, she might go on a date, either way, we get the drums. And revenge, don’t forget that.
‘Sounds like you’re having revenge on me,’ Lambert growls.
‘On you? Lambert, come on.’
But remember I said that the party who has pulled off a great trick is on the lookout for the other party seeking vengeance. Now read on.
Getting Angela and Rodney together is a piece of cake. In fact, Angela seems eager to do it; she meets me after school when I’ve left Sophie. As part of the pitch, I did ask Angela that it had to be her alone. So she shouldn’t bring Sophie into it. If Rodney were to be confronted by women in stereo, there’s no saying what he might do, I tell her. He might spring up the wall or something.
Angela agrees and tells me that I’m really a warm, compassionate sort of guy. She could have gone for me herself except for my dress sense and bad haircut.
‘We all have a cross to bear,’ I say and hope that Rodney is ready to play his part. After all, he’s had enough training to win him an Oscar. Good old Rodney, he’s sitting in his garage, acting the part of a guy who is nervous and girl-shy. He reacts when Angela pops her head around the door. The drums are in the corner, ready to go.
‘Oh, a girl, a girl!’ Rodney stiffens and etiolates. (Another big word for you.)
‘Easy, Rodney,’ I say. ‘This girl understands. She’s gentle.’
‘Hi, Rodney,’ Angela smiles. ‘I heard about the business at the ATM.’
‘Oh, very frightening.’ Rodney goes into a kind of backing-away mode. But Angela advances and kneels by him and smiles again.
‘Would you like me to stay?’
‘Oh, for a little while,’ Rodney agrees. ‘But are you nice?’
‘Of course I am.’ Angela does the purring bit. She looks at me. ‘Leave us, Fergus. Please?’
As I go, I manage to give Rodney a secret boy sign: I’ll be back for the drums. He gives me a secret boy sign: Okay, now piss off! Then I go outside to find Lambert waiting by the gate, his face already at the tripping- over stage.
‘They engaged yet?’
‘It worked a treat,’ I say and then it is horror time. For who should approach along the pavement but Sophie. Normally, I love to see her but not at this moment.
‘Hi, guys.’ She is bright.
‘Hello,’ Lambert answers. Sophie hugs me and I catch Lambert giving me a dark look.
‘Listen,’ Sophie begins. ‘A long time ago, you guys said you were looking for a set of drums, yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ I agree.
Well, the thing is,’ Sophie goes on. ‘There’s a set at our place you can have. My brother’s. He’s up in Queensland so I e-mailed him and he said,
go for it, kiddo.’ Lambert looks at me. He looks at Rodney’s garage. He looks at Sophie.
‘We’d love to borrow your drums, Sophie.’ Then he marches up the driveway.
‘Oh, is something going on?’ Sophie is wide eyed. She grins the same sort of grin she used on me after the No Whatsits joke. ‘Have I come in at the middle?’ But Lambert has already gone all the way up the drive. Next thing I see is Rodney’s big drum rolling out of the garage door. It hits the edge of the swimming pool, bounces upwards then plops in the water. The big drum is joined by a smaller drum then a littier one, a set of bongos, two half coconuts and finally a cymbal which frisbees out to skate across the surface of the pool. They all make very satisfying noises.
‘Gee,’ I say.
‘Wow!’ Sophie is impressed too. Then Lambert storms out of the garage with Angela almost running to keep up with him.
‘I was doing all right on my own,’ she complains. ‘I was just about to deck him.’
‘My way was better,’ Lambert snaps, then Angela starts to giggle. Sophie raises an eyebrow just as Rodney emerges from the garage and looks at his floating drum kit.
‘You bastards!’ he screams.
Oh, I’d love to have been a fly on the wall in that garage. But Lambert is not finished.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘We’re going for coffee. CCC right now!’ He marches off.
‘Well, of course we are,’ Angela agrees. The girls shrug and roll their eyes at each other then at me.
‘Fergus, what have you been feeding that boy?’ Sophie whispers.
Cactus
Knock, knock, knock. It’s the front door.
Mum is doing the Saturday afternoon shopping, Dad is off seeing a man about a job, leaving me bottle-feeding baby Sophie, trying to get her to suck instead of blow. F-toom! There it goes again, all the way across the room. I fetch her bottle from under the dining table, hygienically wipe off the carpet fluff and plug it back in. Knock, knock, goes the door again.
‘Get that, Fergus,’ Senga says. ‘I’m doing an assignment.’ I happen to know she’s braiding her hair, African style, using a magazine for inspiration.
‘I’m busy too,’ I tell Senga with right-on-my-side plus a note of triumph in my voice. ‘Jennifer,’ I bawl. ‘See who’s there!’
‘Get it yourself!’
Knock, knockity, knock, goes the front door again.
Whoever it is will have the paint off so I hitch baby Sophie up on my shoulder and open it myself. It is Rodney, standing there, hand raised, all ready to knock again. Sophie gives a burp, makes with her apprentice baby grin then spits a cheerful, milky dribble over my shoulder.
‘Rodney, hi.’ I wait, confident that he will not strike a man with a child in his arms.
‘Hi, Fergus.’ Rodney shuffles. ‘Listen, about that Angela and Sophie stuff, the date, and going on like that. I was really stupid.’
‘Yeah?’ I leave it to Rodney to do the talking. This is a new, self-insulting Rodney.
‘Thing is,’ he goes on, ‘you can have the drums. And no deals or anything. Just take them.’ Suddenly it’s like the end of a bad week on TV; first there’s no shows worth seeing then two good ones come at the same time, on different channels and the VCR’s gone blink-oid. Sophie’s brother’s drum kit is already ours, now so is Rodney’s.
‘Well, thanks, Rodney.’ I could have told him to drop off after the way he’s been going on all these months, but that’s not the old Fergus style. Besides, I still haven’t checked out Sophie’s brother’s drums; they might be crap. Nutshell-wise, with the September holidays looming, Mitch has gone off overseas with his parents, and in his absence Lambert and I have spent the week since the Drum-Kit-in-the-Pool Incident practising together on our guitars and collecting a few songs, so musically speaking, we are a pretty crash-hot combo.
Now back to Rodney who stands on the doorstep, looking past me into the hallway where baby Sophie’s pram is parked as well as some other bits and pieces that Dad left lying about. I can tell Rodney’s spellbound so I invite him in and like a guy in a trance, he stumbles after me, mouth open, looking left and right.
‘You’ve got a family,’ he says.
‘It shows, then?’ We go into the living room where the multitudinous furniture fights for floor space, cheek-by-jowl alongside the lop-sided piano.
‘It’s not like my place,’ Rodney ventures. ‘My parents go for stainless steel. And not so much furniture.’ He walks further into the room, does a little plink-plonk on the yellow-keyed piano then disappears behind a wardrobe, at which point Senga comes light-stepping into the room, her hair braided and threaded with blue and red beads, but only on one side. She goes bouncing around, tossing her braids like one of those models on TV whose hairdo has more personality than she does.
‘What do you think?’ She twirls her head of hair then for the first time catches sight of Rodney. ‘Oh hell!’ Senga turns on me and lets fly with a snarl. ‘You could have warned me he was here!’
But Rodney likes what he sees.
‘It’s really nice,’ he assures Senga. ‘Your hair and those beady things.’
‘You mean her eyes?’ I suggest, but Senga lets it pass. She changes her tune.
‘You think so?’ This is Play-doh Senga; all it takes is a compliment. My sister purrs.
‘I like the way you’ve got it sort of knotted.’ Rodney does litde twirling motions with his hand. He’s not big on the correct technical terms, is Rodders, but Senga was never one to knock back a word of praise. Rodney goes on, ‘I live next door. Rodney.’
‘I’m Senga.’ She smiles. ‘I’ve seen you about, Rodney. Going to school. In your little uniform.’ I marvel at this new sister of mine, this nice sister. At the same time, I kick myself. Nine months ago when we came to live here, I should have fixed up a meeting with these two and we could have had his drum kit long before this. They both ignore me and go on saying nice things to each other until there comes a sound at the front door. ‘Oh, that’ll be Mother.’ Senga smiles again and ducks for the door. ‘I must help with the shopping.’ Senga is really bunging on the posh routine.
‘Your sister’s nice,’ Rodney tells me.
‘Lovely,’ I agree sincerely, but in the hallway, Mum almost gives the game away.
‘You want to help?’ I hear her ask Senga, suspicion dripping from the words. ‘What’s it going to cost?’
‘Oh, Mother, you do go on.’ Senga gives a little trilling laugh. Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Rodney is too smitten to notice anything wrong. Mum enters, nods to Rodney and comes to make goo-goo noises at Sophie, at the same time asking me domestic-type questions about Sophie’s feeding-frenzy.
‘She keep her bottle down?’
‘Except for this bit.’ I show the stain on my shirt.
‘The stuff’s out in the car, Fergus.’ Mum takes Sophie and nurses her briefly as I head for the door. Then Mum hands Sophie to Rodney. ‘Hold her for a second.’ Senga is almost aghast that Rodney should be roped in like this.
‘Mo-ther!’ she protests. But Rodney clutches Sophie who gives him her gummy grin and tries to grab his nose. I leave them to it and when I come back with the plastic bags from the car, Rodney is already under the Sophie spell. He’s never been this close to a baby in his life. Never been this close to Senga, who now sits alongside him, showing Sophie her rattle and making koochie noises.
Mum looks at me, rolls her eyes and makes a sign. In the kitchen we start putting away the shopping.
‘She just can’t help herself,’ Mum says.
Rodney hangs around for a while, sharing the McPhail family ambience, which now includes Jennifer who emerges to play loud scales on the piano for him. The soft pedal fell off long ago so forte is all we get out of the thing. Senga and Jennifer are all over the guy, but Senga is more all over him than Jennifer because she’s older and saw him first.
Rodney stays to eat, fascinated by our haphazard kitchen, the crockery and cutlery, not one piece of which matches another,
to say nothing of the furniture. Words fly back and forth across the table and for Rodney, it’s like he’s at the tennis; a quick volley from Jennifer, a neat return from Senga then a cunning lob from Mum. Even Sophie gets in the act; at four months, she’s just starting solid food but insists on grabbing the custard spoon. This is why girls grow up to be good at netball; it comes from early food-throwing. Sophie never misses the mark and tonight she has a new target.
The day wears on then Dad comes home.
‘I got it,’ he announces proudly. ‘The council guy loved me. In a Platonic sense.’ Dad has been searching the positions vacant, since odd-jobbing no longer appeals to him. He stands in the doorway of the kitchen, hiding something from our gaze.
‘Well, show us,’ Mum urges him. Dad makes a proud ta-ra fanfare and puts on a cap then produces a long pole with a disc on the end that says: CHILDREN CROSSING. STOP!
‘Traffic Control Operative. Grade 1.’
‘Lollipop man!’ Senga says.
‘If you show up at my school,’ Jennifer sniffs, ‘I’ll go the extra distance and chance it at the lights.’
‘Don’t be uncharitable.’ Mum shakes her head but Dad cheerfully props his lollipop in the corner and joins us at the table, leaving his hat on.
‘They gave me a run-through this afternoon,’ he tells us. ‘With some brownies who happened to be there. They were really kind, those girls. They crossed that road seven times, till I got the hang of it. Oh, the sense of power this job gives you. I stopped a semi-trailer then a fire engine. “Don’t go ringing your bell at me, mate,” I told the guy.’
Rodney takes all of this in. For him it’s a new world; for us it’s nothing new.
Darkness falls and washing-up follows then right on cue there’s an important phone call for Senga. She gets one every night. But this time, she asks Jennifer to say she’ll ring back, preferring to give a hand with the dishes and show Rodney how to use a tea-towel. It is at this point Mum makes hints that he might be needed at home or something. Perhaps his worried and doting parents are out organising a search party? Contacting missing persons?
Fergus McPhail Page 15
